November 29th, 2009

Book Blogger Recommendations

I contributed my ten favorite books (not that my top ten is ever the same from day to day, lol, I love books so much I have trouble picking, and I’m sure that was a similar problem for the other book bloggers) to a list that has been compiled by Reading with Tequila. 33 book bloggers contributed over 200 unique titles!

My top 10, in random order and  if I’m remembering them correctly, were:

1. Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M. Auel
2. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon (read the whole series!)
3. The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough
4. Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
5. Remember Me – Christopher Pike
6. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
7. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
8. The Angels Weep – Wilbur Smith
9. Watchers – Dean Koontz
10. The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom

I’m planning to use the recommendation list to put together part of my 2010 reading list. Certainly I’ll read many other books, as I tend to grab a few that simply catch my eye every time I head to the library, but it’s nice to be able to broaden my reading horizons a bit by reading things recommended by other book lovers. So here are the ones I’m planning to try and read over the next year or so from the list (in no particular order):

1. Hush, Hush – Becca Fitzpatrick
2. City of Bones – Cassandra Clare
3. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
4. Graceling – Kristin Cashore
5. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
6. Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
7. 11 Minutes – Paulo Coelho
8. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
9. Poison Study – Maria V. Snyder
10. The Giver – Lois Lowry
11. The Immortal Highlander – Karen Marie Moning
12. This Lullaby – Sarah Dessen
13. Dark Lover – J.R. Ward
14. Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman
15. Brisingr – Christopher Paolini
16. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
17. The Prisoner’s Wife – Asha Bandele
18. Happiness Sold Separately – Libby Street
19. Love You Hate You Miss You – Elizabeth Scott
20. Somewhere in Time – Richard Matheson
21. Breath – Tim Winton
22. Gone – Michael Grant
23. The Looking Glass Wars- Frank Beddor
24. No One Belongs Here More than You- Miranda July
25. The Agony of Alice – Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
26. The Unlikely Ones – Mary Brown
27. The Wednesday Letters – Jason F. Wright

I could probably add another 20 to my list, but I do have a business to run too!! The year 2010 is shaping up to be a busy and interesting year for me – I can’t wait!

November 25th, 2009

Blog Ambition

I was feeling kind of lacking in focus today during BabyBoy’s naptime, and although I probably should have been getting some work done, I started catching up on reading from my GReader instead. And my attention was totally caught by The Mom Slant’s semi-recent post The Secret of My Success. Julie talks about the misleading media information on blogging and other internet “careers”.

I think the topic particularly caught my interest today because I’ve been carefully watching my paypal account for when I have enough to commit to my BlogHer ‘10 tickets. Which of course reminds me of how one of the disappointments of my first BlogHer experience this past summer was all the talk about making money from blogging. I do NOT blog for money, I have no interest in blogging for money. My writing creativity is hard enough to find most days, let alone to feel like I have to blog in order to bring in money. I blog for ME. I blog as a way to share, to connect with like-minded people, to have some vague form of adult interaction on the days when I feel overwhelmed by the little boys in my world. I’m only trying BlogHer again because there was a lot of talk about more sessions on the craft of writing, something I could use (ok and the fact that it’s in New York was a big attraction, lol!!)

The written word has always fascinated me – I’ve been a huge reader since I was very young. I liked writing for myself when I was a pre-teen (short stories) and I’ve kept a diary almost as long as I can remember. Pretty sporadic entries, but a great outlet. So when I discovered blogging it seemed inevitable to me that I would want to have one of my very own. A place where I could attempt to develop my writing skills and let my passion for words flow. I haven’t accomplished that as much as I would have hoped, but I do get a great deal of pleasure from blogging and being part of the blogging community. So nope, no blog ambition here at all, at least not in the financial sense. Just an ambition to evolve as a person and a writer, and to share the journey with whoever chooses to share it with me.

Laurie

November 22nd, 2009

WAHM Weekend

It’s been a heck of a week and Sunday is always both an ending and beginning for my week. This weekend was pretty good – I managed to catch up on most of my work from the past week, host a birthday party for my two-year old and get hubby off to a work rotation. He’s finished working in the NWT and now he just takes calls and hopes for any shifts he can get, so when the call came for this one we were grateful – even though he’ll miss BigBoy’s birthday in a couple of weeks

Having the flu last week was a real wakeup call to me, about my health and my business. For my health, I suffered far worse from the flu than the kids, and it’s clear to me I need to work a lot harder on taking care of myself and building up my immunity so I can handle illness a little better. I was reading over at A Cowboy’s Wife about Lori’s desire to lose weight and was reminded that this is absolutely critical for me right now. I know that eating healthier will help me lose weight and feel better!

Workwise – I was reminded that a wahm cannot be an island. I am not always that busy with work, and yet I was having serious trouble keeping up with even the few things that absolutely had to be done while I was ill with the flu. I had to cancel a conference call and had to take an extra couple of days on one particular project. So this week I’m starting to train someone to assist me a bit more, so as the workload grows (and I did manage to sign another client last week!) I can get help with at least some of my tasks.

Now, as much as I want to keep writing, I have to get back to catching up on my work and need to clean my house to start the week off fresh!!